


A Life So Changed

by wingmates



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Angst, First Love, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-16 19:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingmates/pseuds/wingmates
Summary: The year is 1938 and the outbreak of war is far on the horizon. Young Finlay Collins wanders Edinburgh in search of solitude to mend his ever breaking heart. But what he finds instead is a relationship so compelling it may change his life forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> whew! my very first Dunkirk fic.....it's so nerve wracking to post! i've read nothing but beautiful fics from this fandom. i'm honestly blown away every time i read something new ;u; i hope i've done this pairing justice and that the story will be enjoyable.
> 
> the age difference i've used is the age difference jack lowden and tom hardy share ~ 13 years! therefore, there is a large age gap in general. collins starts out at 18 whereas farrier is 31. my apologies if this upsets anyone. also, the first names i've used for them are taken from the fic [not to fear the laying of my head upon the pillow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11661012/chapters/26238987) by 13thDoctor and JHarkness—all credit for character names go to these two. theirs was the first collins/farrier fic i ever read and these names struck me as so likely that i couldn't shake them ~ but this is where all similarities end.
> 
>  ~~that being said, this fic is planned out to be a 3 part chapter fic~~ i spoke before i was sure! at this point, this fic could be up to 6 chapters, but we'll see ^^ subscribe if you'd like ♡

 

 

_**book one, chapter one**    
_

❝ His dark eyes took me in, and I wondered

what they would look like if he fell in love. ❞

_— F. Scott Fitzgerald_

 

 

 

 **one**.

In the late winter of his eighteenth year, Finlay Collins suffered the cumbrous ache of a broken heart. It was unlike any ache he would later learn in manhood, but the kind fueled by unwitting youth. He had loved a girl, or so thought he had, and she had not returned the sentiment. Thus, the prospering pride in the very center of his chest at once leered like something awful. It had happened quickly: his devotion proclaimed and she, with her laughing eyes, had watched him quietly all the time, so that in the end, when he had been left alone with the sinking of his pride it had seemed as if the world had stopped turning. He was all that was left. Him, and his breaking heart.

 

She had not come back after that. She had not laughed in the face of his declaration, but had done something much worse: she pretended he did not exist. So it was that the days which followed, empty of sympathy, were darkened by the secrecy of his despair. For what was a boy to do in such a situation? He longed to tell his Father, but feared hearing what he did not want to hear, for in those years of youth, Finlay Collins knew precisely what his Father would tell him:  _what did you expect, boy? Women are not worth the time of day and neither is love—_ hadn’t young Collins learned that when his Mother left those years before?

 

It was through this secrecy that the days came and they went and the winter turned away so that the smells of spring prospered. The cobbles, no longer slick with ice, became warm, solid ground below his feet. And yet, it was as if that winter of heartache had latched itself to him like something dying, desperate to keep alive. He carried it with him. It soiled many good things. He no longer felt the comfort he had once felt among his peers, amid his own home, and he found himself hurrying from place to place, desperate to avoid those around him who had heard, who surely knew, who could tell of his humiliation. He wore it on his sleeve, like the blackened edges of his heart. He wore it on his face and in his eyes: a humiliation caused by love. He was certain in the way young men are always certain that he would never indulge in such an incaution of the heart again.

 

But that had been before Thomas Farrier.

 

 

 

 

 **two**.

It was a warm day in April and the fruit trees were in bloom; Collins found himself amid the narrow roads of Edinburgh, miles from home. He had missed the tram, though he would admit only to himself that he had done so on purpose. It had been crowded with classmates, each person on their individual trek home, and he had felt very odd among them, worrisome of being in such a condensed place. He could have found another tram and taken the long route home, but it was a lovely grey evening, and he had not been in Edinburgh for quite some time. So he continued his walk, tired because it was late, but he did not care.

 

He passed tall, leaning buildings that smelled of firewood and mildewing, abandoned fields burned by winter. Edinburgh was dead in places but very alive in others, so it was that the green of the trees that leaned in the wind bloomed a different kind of shade, vibrant by comparison. He came to a nondescript shop with pictures in the windows and a sign that read:  **open for business—come right in!**. His schoolbooks were heavy from walking, so he could not purchase a thing, but he admired the small trinkets lined on the back wall and the golden, engraved tea tins. The smell reminded him too well of summers passed; the bergamot and spice were like the jars of potpourri that had once filled his own home, back when it had not only been him and his Father.

 

“They are quite a darling investment!” said a voice at Collins’s elbow.

 

He looked over at the gentle intrusion and found a small, aged man by his side. He had very little hair on the top of his head and eyes large as stars behind thick bifocals.

 

“The tins,” said the man. He wore a smock over a light blue button-up. “You can collect them after you’ve drank the tea and they make very interesting paperweights. Or, maybe, you can even collect other small items inside them.”

 

The man took a tin from the shelf. His hands tremored all the time. “Take a look here”—he opened the tin—“give it a smell!”

 

“It’s lovely,” Collins said politely. “How much?”

 

“Two pounds.”

 

If it was not for the way the old man watched him with too blue eyes, so large in his small, aging face, Collins would not have been spurred to make such a purchase. One could buy tea anyplace, nearly at any price. But when the man closed the tin and placed it in Collins’s palm, it was as good as any transaction. He took the money from his pocket and left the shop with the shiny golden tin held in his hand like an oracle.

 

As Collins came to the edge of the road, he looked up at the sky. The clouds had gathered and formed a dark grey canopy overhead; a spring shower loomed omnipresent.

 

He followed the road until he came to an underpass that led down into an alcove of buildings, where the air was sooty from neighboring coal mines. Ash collected on all the cobbles. It hung in the air like a toxin, able to be tasted when one breathed too deeply. He was not near any tram station and knew certainly that he would not beat the storm. It was silly then, to think he had came so far east, not far from home but too far to walk. He spied a bench in the underpass of a building where he would be hidden from the weather, but not from the soot. When he sat, a dust cloud burst up from the bench and made it appear as if the stone was breathing black ash into the air.

 

Collins touched his eyes that had become very heavy. He laid his books on the bench, the tea tin atop them, and rest his head in his hands. The soot mingled with the oils of his hands, creating black streaks across his face as he rubbed and rubbed and cursed himself from coming so far. It would be dark before he returned home. Would his Father notice, he wondered.

 

“Hey, kid,” someone said. “Are you all right?”

 

Just outside the alcove, so close Collins could smell the brawny scent of his perfume, was a man with a cigarette in his mouth. He wore a broad, blue suit with one hand thrust into the trouser pocket. It had started to rain, so he held a newspaper above his head. In that moment, he was something like a movie star: calm and concerned, with eyes like candles in the dark. When he moved closer, he moved with a fluidity Collins had never seen; it was like he moved in waves.

 

“I said are you all right?”

 

“Yeah,” was Collins’s empty response.

 

“Hm, kid, you’ve got, uh”—he motioned with the newspaper that now hung idle at his side—“you’ve got soot all over you.”

 

Collins reached for his face. His fingers came back stained black.

 

The man laughed quietly. He said, “Come up. Second floor, come on. We’ll get you cleaned up.” He folded the newspaper and held it under his arm.

 

Collins silently followed the man up the stairs, holding the banister all the time. He felt peculiar. He felt nervous. It was not a feeling he was well acquainted with, but one he thought, perhaps, he had felt once before. There was a war inside his belly, like the flutters of a thousand different birds fighting to become one.

 

The building they approached was very old. The stone steps were weathered and tamped down as if shaped into something new. The banister was cracked; the walls an odd shade of green and very cold when Collins touched them. He was curious to feel the bubbles in the paint and the places where it had been chipped away by age. He would always remember that stairwell. Just as he would always remember that day, and the sound of the rain that had started to fall in steady, warring bursts. It beat off the cobbles like bullets, thundering down on the tin roofs of nearby shops.

 

“Here we are,” said the man. “Get your shoes off. Leave them there, on the doorstep—yeah, there. Can’t be tracking in all that dirt.”

 

Collins lingered by the door, even after the wind had pulled it shut behind him.

 

It was a small room with a round table and two chairs set in the middle of it. There was a bed with a collection of colorful blankets. Wide French doors led out onto a balcony, obstructed by the rain; Collins could barely make out the silhouette of trees, their blooming limbs manic in the wind.

 

Weighed down by a myriad of curiosities, Collins came slowly into the room. He could not keep from watching the man as he stubbed out the cigarette in a cup by the sink.

 

“Well, come on,” Collins was told. “Get over here.”

 

It was humbling to be pulled and pushed around the way Collins allowed himself to be. When the man took his arm and told him to sit, he sat. When he tipped Collins’s head back so he may clean the ash from his eyes with a damp flannel, Collins let him. But all the time, with hands working against his face, preening him as a mother would, Collins could not breathe. He felt a lightness in his head that he had not felt in all his life.

 

“There.” The man threw the flannel into the sink. “We couldn’t have you walking around like that. It looked like you’d been skulking in the streets, and the people around here, well, they aren’t the type to keep quiet about something that might concern them.”

 

“Thank you,” said Collins quietly.

 

“Do you live around here?”

 

Collins shook his head.

 

“Where?”

 

He told him.

 

“What the hell are you doing all the way out here?” When he spoke, he did not speak harshly, but rather slurred his words together like a gentle purr of noise.

 

Collins looked at him quietly for a moment. “Where are you from?”

 

“Here,” he smiled.

 

“No, your accent.”

 

“London,” he said. “Moved here for work.”

 

Collins took in the blue suit once again. “What are you, like, a businessman of some sort?”

 

“RAF.” He pointed to a small collection of pins clipped over his right breast. Below them was a name tag with one, single word:  **FARRIER**. “You didn’t answer me. What are you doing out here?”

 

A defiance rose up inside of Collins. It was not an urge to squabble, but a childish sensitivity to being questioned so directly. “Why do you care?”

 

Farrier, or so Collins believed him to be, laughed soundlessly. “I’m only curious. Call it conversation.”

 

“I bought tea.”

 

“You came all this way for tea?”

 

“I missed the tram,” he said dully. “If that matters to you.”

 

“Nothing really matters to me, kid, but all right. You missed the tram, so you bought some tea. Then you got caught in the rain, huh? Doesn’t sound like a very lovely day to me.”

 

Collins looked out at the balcony. The rain continued to fall; it was as if a thick fog had come up and covered the windows. There was nothing but the melancholic glow of grey.

 

“I’m a little lost, too,” Collins admitted. He did not like to say such things aloud.

 

When he returned his attention to Farrier, Collins found him smiling. It was a blend of quiet mirth, of expectation as if he had already known. It was a smile Collins could not help but return.

 

“Cheer up,” said Farrier. “After the storm lightens, I’ll take you home.” He picked up the golden tea tin and shook it thoughtfully. “Want a cuppa?”

 

Collins nodded.

 

“All right. Bathroom’s in there. How about you get your hands washed up so you don’t get soot all over yourself again.”

 

In the bathroom, Collins saw the ash had settled in his yellow hair and had darkened it considerably. It collected on the shoulders of his school jacket, on the legs of his trousers; he was covered in dust and suddenly felt very gritty.

 

When he came back to the kitchen, he stood guiltily by the door. Farrier noticed him at once.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Well, I'm dirty, ain't I?” He motioned to his jacket. “It’s all over me.”

 

Farrier looked at him as if noticing for the first time that, yes, Collins was in fact covered from head to foot in soot. He stopped messing with the kettle and stood, as if thinking, in a silence Collins could not find comfort in. Then, without word, he went to the bedroom that did not stand apart from the kitchen, and rummaged in a chest of drawers. What he brought back was a pair of clean trousers, a button-up with creases along the sleeves.

 

“Put these on and give me your clothes.”

 

Collins watched him steadily.

 

“Go on, kid, I won’t look.”

 

It was as soon as Farrier turned his back that Collins quickly, with his heart beating rapidly up into his throat, stepped out of his school uniform and into the castoff clothes Farrier had given him. The trousers were a smidgen too short; the shirt too large in the shoulders. He felt very silly.

 

“Here.” He gave Farrier the dirty clothes.

 

“I’ll wash them up. Come by to-morrow for them.”

 

Collins promised he would.

 

 

 

 

 **three**.

It was easy to recognize Farrier’s car after the first time being in it. It was a lovely blue thing with Italian wheels that gleamed as if glowing in the dark; and when it revved, it revved soundlessly, as if it was only a phantom in the streets of Edinburgh.

 

When Collins returned the following evening, it was first the car he noticed, idling outside the apartments. Then there was Farrier. He was leaned into the boot, hauling a large box from inside.

 

“Hullo,” said Collins.

 

All that day, a visceral eagerness had followed Collins. It was something palpable, able to be felt in the very tips of his fingers. As he had made his way along those unfamiliar cobbles, able to smell the boiling laundry from open flats above, he had thought of nothing but this moment: to stand there, beside Farrier again; to see him and to say, “How’ve you been?”

 

Farrier smiled. “Bit of a cold day, innit? My back’s been giving me some trouble.” He straightened up. “Other than that, can’t complain. How about you get that box there. Come upstairs with it.”

 

The box was quite heavy, though it only seemed to hold small trinkets. There was a photo frame, folded linens that smelled of mothballs and the faintest bit of lavender. Odd baubles and medals tinkled when shook; and at the very top of it all, highlighted a delightful shade of gold, was an enamel name pin. It was the pin Farrier had worn on his breast the evening before.

 

Collins followed him up the stairs and set the box on the table. He watched, quietly, as Farrier heated the stove.

 

“That’s your name, innit?” asked Collins. He held up the pin.

 

“That’s right.”

 

“What are all the medals for?”

 

“Loads of things.”

 

“You don’t wanna tell me?”

 

Farrier looked over at him. He said, matter-of-factly: “They don’t really matter anymore, kid. They’re old. Got them at the academy when I was about your age.” He continued heating the stove. All the time he said, “I can’t really remember what they’re all for, anyway. A lot of them are my Father’s, back when he was in the great war.”

 

When the stove was heated, Farrier ran the water to fill the kettle. He shouldered out of his jacket and laid it over the back of one chair. “Watch the water, yeah? I have to get out of this suit.”

 

Collins went to the stove and quite literally watched the kettle. He noticed, then, that his hands had been shaking. His legs had turned to water. From the corner of his eye he could see the bed Farrier stood beside. If he turned his head the slightest bit, he could see, perfectly, the vision of Farrier loosening his tie. He watched Farrier unclasp the buttons of his white dress shirt, then watched as it slid down the width of his shoulders. He was a lean, masculine man, with sinews of muscle like roads all across his body. He was very different from the men Collins knew. There were the boys from school that were simply only boys. They did not have the shape Farrier had. They did not have the depth of his voice. And Farrier was certainly unlike Collins’s Father, who was more like Collins himself: thin and awkwardly built.

 

Farrier stepped out of his clothes and into something new. Collins admired the way the cotton of his t-shirt stretched over the muscles in his back.

 

“You left your tea here,” Farrier told him with his back turned. “Didn’t mean to do that, did you?”

 

“I did.”

 

Collins drew his attention back to the kettle. He feared being caught having watched Farrier all the time he changed. He saw, then, the golden tea tin from before.

 

“It’s kind of like a thank you, you know? For taking me home.”

 

“That’s sweet, kid, but it’s all right. All I did was drive you somewhere.”

 

“A lot of people wouldn’t have done it.”

 

They took their tea on the balcony, where the sun was starting to set. It flashed gold between tree limbs, a myriad of shadows like drawings across the weathered patio decorated the spaces between light. Collins was warmed by this light. He was warmed by the tea. Inside, Farrier had set a record to play, and faintly, like something dreamed up, came the sweet tempo of Bach.

 

“I looked at your school books,” said Farrier. “Saw your name written on them. Finlay, is it?”

 

Collins said it was.

 

“Charming name.”

 

“No one calls me that.”

 

“What do they call you?”

 

Collins told him.

 

“All right.” Farrier lighted a cigarette with a match struck from the ground. “Collins, it is.”

 

They kept on that way, until the tea was finished and the record stopped spinning. When they came back inside, Farrier cleared off the table and set down a thick, cotton towel. He laid Collins’s clothes across the table and ironed them.

 

Collins wanted to speak up. He wanted to say that Farrier did not have to do such a thing. Collins had not had half the mind to return with Farrier’s belongings, so how could he expect something so domestic, so absolutely foreign to him, to transpire this way? He was not sure that he liked it. But there was something in the way Farrier’s hands moved as they smoothed the wrinkles from Collins’s school shirt that gave him the impression Farrier did not mind. It was—as was the music, the medals, and all the things surrounding them—, a glimpse into Farrier’s life. At the time, it did not matter so much to Collins. He admired the man before him. He rather liked him. It would be regrettable to say otherwise. But he did not know yet, as he would later, just how quickly Farrier had allowed him in.

 

“There you are,” Farrier said. He folded the clothes and laid them atop Collins’s school books. “Now you won’t have to worry about to-morrow.”

 

Collins took them gratefully, albeit guiltily, and sat upright as if stricken. When Farrier, noticing Collins’s peculiar stance, asked what was the matter, Collins could not bring himself to say what he was thinking. He could not rationalize asking this man for reassurance. Was he now a burden? Did Farrier think of him as one? What had started out mundane enough now felt very trying. Collins turned to the balcony, where the doors were still open so that all the smell of spring came like a great wave of relief into the room. He asked, rather strangely, “Do you ever get lonely here?”

 

Collins was not prepared for the steady way Farrier watched him. It was as if he was trying to decipher some deeper meaning. Had there been a deeper meaning? Collins did not think so at first, but when he found himself unable to return Farrier’s severity, he feared there may be. His heart beat rapidly, so deeply felt he could feel the rising pulse in the soles of his feet.

 

“Most of the time,” Farrier said, “yes. Mostly at night, when it’s quiet.”

 

Farrier collected the towel and the iron and stowed them in a cabinet above the sink. He busied himself by cleaning the kitchen. He took the old coal out of the stove and replaced it with new from a pail beneath the sink. He did not look at Collins again.

 

 

 

 

 **four**.

“I’ll take you home,” Farrier said when Collins rose to leave. “You don’t need to be walking alone in the dark.”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

Farrier looked at him. “But, would you like me to?”

 

Collins could not deny that, yes, he really did.

 

There was no great distance between their homes. But that evening, as Farrier drove Collins home, it felt as if no distance existed there at all. It was a short trip. They spent it in silence. When Farrier drove, he did so carefully, easing out of traffic onto narrow, busy roads. He drove without haste nor hesitation, as if he had lived those streets all his life. It must have been the Londoner in him. He was particularly unfazed by the city commotion around him. Everything eased by at a leisurely pace, like a moving picture, set to the backdrop of Collins’s own life.

 

When they arrived in the familiar neighborhood of Collins’s childhood, he could not believe the short time it took to get from one place to another. He longed to stay in the warmth of Farrier’s car. It was then he realized he longed to stay with Farrier.

 

“The lights are on,” Farrier said. He pointed to the large, dormer window set out toward the street. It was the den window, where Collins’s Father took his supper. “You aren’t going to be in trouble, are you?”

 

“What a silly thing to ask!”

 

Farrier smiled. “I want to be careful.”

 

“You don’t have to be careful of me.” Collins got out of the car. He was terribly embarrassed, but felt warm all over. He was giddy in the depths of his heart. “Good-night,” he said through the window. Then he rushed up the stairs to the front door and went inside.

 

 

 

 

 **five**.

It was the weekend, and without a clear reason to venture to Edinburgh, Collins stayed home. But in all the time he lied about, despondent and terribly bored, Collins found himself inebriated by heart-rendering daydreams of Farrier. They were patent dreams of them together: in the cramped flat that smelled of bergamot and ginger, where the coal stove smoked lightly in the cool, spring evening. He imagined them other places too. Near the sea. In the country. In bed, with all the light turned out by rain.

 

He knew it was a terrible thing to be consumed by such make-believe. But this knowledge did not stop the dreams from returning.

 

He woke in the dead of night with a fire raging inside him. His face was hot. His skin rippled at the slightest breath of the wind. What was like an enchantment of fevers burned him down to the very core of his heart, so it was like the dreams were hallucinations, brought by a terrible illness. They sought to ruin him. And he knew it could only be because of Farrier. Always Farrier.

 

How badly Collins wanted him; and how suddenly the realization struck.

 

 

 

 

 **six**.

The next morning, Collins woke to a smattering of rain against the window. The world outside failed to look real. It was so the pavements and all the roads were marked the same deep grey, as if the world had been stripped of its color. There was no light in the sky. Motorcars rumbled through shallow puddles and kicked up grime which left unpleasant, sinewy trails across the roads. It was these trails Collins avoided as he left his home in the pouring rain, destined for Edinburgh.

 

Because the tram came once per hour on the week-end, it was well after noon by the time Collins reached the underpass. Where shops usually lighted the streets now stood black as night;  **closed**  signs hung in all the windows. Here, where the ground sank far down into the earth, the rain had collected in pools of murky water. It filled the places between buildings. It was as if the simple road in Edinburgh had become something distressed; a sinking vessel in the wide plains of the ocean. Collins waded water that so beset him; it reached up above his ankles and filled his shoes so they sank like lead beneath the water.

 

The road was clear of motorcars. He feared Farrier would not be home.

 

In the stairwell, the cold had gathered, so it was impossible to stand on Farrier’s doorstep without shivering. Water dripped from the ends of Collins’s yellow hair, now darkened by the rain. He held his hands in fists, breathing into them as he waited. He knocked, then knocked again. He did not think he could stand the cold long enough to await Farrier’s return. But then, with a burst of warmth, the door came open.

 

Farrier was stunned to see him. It was told in the way his eyes, so inquisitive, followed every inch of Collins’s dripping image as if assembling him together in his mind. Then all at once, he yanked Collins into the flat and demanded, “What the hell were you thinking standing out there?”

 

Collins could not keep from smiling. “You care.”

 

“What a stupid thing to smile about.” Farrier left him in the doorway. Collins heard the rusted turn of the boiler. “Get those sopping clothes off.”

 

It was with very little hesitation that Collins stepped out of his trousers. He dropped his jumper, his shoes, the socks he had been wearing, all in a bundle by the door. A puddle collected around them in an instant. Standing alone in his undergarments, with his skin rippling from the cold, Collins found he was not at all embarrassed as he imagined he ought to be in the presence of another.

 

From the bathroom, he could hear the running of water.

 

Farrier came to where Collins stood, carrying a basket to put the clothes in. He said, gently, without looking anywhere but at the ground, “Go on, get in there.”

 

It was that last piece of clothing Collins found difficult to take off. He stood by the tub where the water steamed, a smooth layer of soap across the top as if the water had frothed in the heat. He looked behind himself and did not see Farrier. He could hear, distantly, the sound of water dropping in a pail. Farrier was wringing his clothes dry.

 

Quickly, Collins climbed into the tub. He submerged himself in the same hurried fashion, desperate to hide himself. But it was then the water warmed him, revived him, bringing him back from the brink of shock the cold had placed him in; and he was able to relax. He laid his head on the edge of the tub. It was a porcelain claw-foot, much like the one he had in his own home. But this one was slightly smaller. It was not long enough for him to stretch his legs. He sat with his knees bent to his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around them.

 

Farrier came in and set a pair of trousers on a chair by the door. Collins watched him all the time. It was the first time he had ever seen Farrier out of sorts. He did not move with the same confidence as he always did. He moved now with halted precision. He did not take more steps than necessary. He looked nowhere but at his own hands. It was like spying a boy masquerading as a man, and in that moment, the mask had fallen away. Was he nervous? Could it have been that Farrier had been nervous all the time, but it was only then that Collins took notice? Or was it, simply, Collins was finally beginning to understand him.

 

“You can stay,” Collins whispered.

 

Farrier paused in the doorway. He did not look over his shoulder as Collins had hoped he would.

 

“Why would I do that?”

 

Collins sank lower into the water, drowning beneath the insurmountable embarrassment that so suddenly hindered him. He felt very stupid.

 

“I meant, well, I meant if you wanted to. I wouldn’t mind.”

 

Still looking away, Farrier asked: “Do you want me to?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Tell me, then.”

 

“Will you stay?”

 

Farrier did not move right away. He kept in place as if weighing his options, but Collins knew he would not leave.

 

He went to the cupboard beneath the sink and brought out a flannel. Then, with his head slightly lowered, as if still unsure he could look—as if, perhaps, Collins was bluffing—Farrier crouched in a way beside the tub so it was his arms were wrapped around Collins’s shoulders. He wet the flannel. He kept his hands in the bath water. And, gently, he washed Collins’s chest. He washed his arms. All the time his hands tremored very slightly. If he had not been touching him, Collins may never have known.

 

“Is this what you wanted?” Farrier’s voice came as a ghost whisper on the air. It tickled the back of Collins’s neck, raising the hair along his nape. “You can tell me.”

 

But it was impossible to speak.

 

Collins closed his eyes. He leaned back, his face turned so his cheek rest against Farrier’s forehead. It was that way Farrier washed him. There was only silence apart from their joined breathing; the sound of the water softly lapping at the sides of the tub. Farrier pushed his hand below the water, down and down, until he reached the place where all the desires from the night had hidden away; Collins whispered a gasp. He was hard. His body ached.

 

“Is this what you’ve been thinking about?”

 

Collins looked at him, alarmed.

 

“You don’t have to be ashamed of it,” Farrier soothed. When he spoke, he spoke in a way that Collins knew he could trust. “Do you want to go to bed with me?”

 

“I,” Collins covered Farrier’s hand with his own. He took it away slowly. It was not because he did not want it, for it was obvious he did—obvious by the way his skin flushed a deep red; how, as he reached for Farrier’s face, he could not breathe properly—, but because he could not stop wondering,  _what if, what if, what if_.

 

He took Farrier’s face between his hands and kissed him.

 

It was not a deep, altering kiss. It was terrifying. It brought a lightness to Collins’s head and made his cock ache evermore. He pulled away only to regain what composure he quickly had lost, then, with his eyes tightly shut and his heart bursting up into his mouth, Collins put his arms around Farrier’s neck and kissed him deeply, ardently, with his tongue in his mouth and all the blood of his body rushing into his head.

 

Then, all at once, as if burned, Collins pulled away. He was breathless with worry. “Was that all right?” Then, quietly, “Do you—do you want this too?”

 

It was like shame came and swallowed Farrier whole. His eyes filled with something new. They glittered in the dim of the bathroom; deep, recessive pools becoming ever deeper. His forehead creased with anxiety, but he nodded.

 

He rose from the floor. “You could tell, couldn’t you?”

 

“Not at all.”

 

“You’re clueless, then.” He pointed to the clothes. “Get dressed.”

 

Had Farrier been upset by Collins’s failure to take notice sooner? It was impossible to tell. He stood dismissively, watching Collins for only a moment, before leaving the room. But once gone, Collins hurriedly dressed and met him in the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

 **seven**.

The room smelled of burning coal as the stove fire warmed the apartment wondrously, so it was like being inside of summer as the sky fell in torrents.

 

“How old are you?” Farrier asked. His voice had died down to a somber sort of whisper. It was as if guilt lay open on the table. “Eighteen?”

 

When Collins told him,  _yes, that’s right_ , Farrier studied him an awfully long time. He asked, “Do you know how old I am?”

 

Collins said he did not.

 

“Do you care to know?”

 

“No.”

 

“How come?”

 

“Because,” he said, “you’re lovely anyway.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“You! You’re smart and you’re—you’re beautiful. You called me clueless for not knowing what goes on in your head, but does that mean you know what went on in mine?”

 

Collins rose from his seat and rounded the table. He stopped in front of Farrier and looked down at him. He did not look at Farrier in any rude manner. He did not do it even to emphasize what it was he said. But rather, he wanted to be near him when he said it. He wanted Farrier to draw him close, so he did not have to go the whole way himself.

 

“Is that why you let me hang about? Because you knew what I was thinking all this time?”

  
“I won’t pretend to know anything.”

 

“But you had an idea. Didn’t you?”

 

Farrier did, but he did not say so in so many words. It was said in the way he reached for Collins, just as Collins had hoped he would, and pulled himself to his feet. They stood together, but apart, with the world between them; Farrier kept his head low as he placed a hand on Collins’s lower back. He pulled him so their chests came together; a closeness between their hearts Collins had never felt before.

 

It was a silent love-making when Farrier took Collins’s face into his hand. He placed his palm against Collins’s cheek and held him that way, his forehead creased deeply by his musings. He said, “I wish you wouldn’t fret so much, kid,” and then nothing else.

 

When, at last, they kissed again, it was much different than the first. It was something entirely of its own: a slow meeting like an embrace. When Collins breathed out, Farrier breathed in; and the world fell quiet. It was as if all the sound that ever was was the soft way Farrier breathed. He struggled as all the words he wished to speak caught in his throat and damned him to silence. When Collins held him like a man lost at sea, too afraid to ever let go, Farrier did not look at him with anything but compassion. It was this way they shared an understanding in their separate stillnesses, so it was not strange at all. But Collins was afraid. He was afraid of the bed and the way Farrier pressed him against it. He was afraid he would not do well what Farrier was surely experienced in. But it all went away when the blankets came over them, once Collins knew to take the lead, and knew that it would all come to a crashing halt if, simply, he wished it to.

 

It was not frightening then, and never frightening again.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

_**book one, chapter two**  
_

❝ How different it all was

from what you'd planned. ❞

_— F. Scott Fitzgerald_

 

 

 

 **eight**.

It seemed as though, for all the time that followed their first time together, Collins could do nothing more but dream. When not with Farrier, he was alone in his own head, where thought plagued him like an affliction.

 

He dreamed between lessons, as he stared, ardently, at a far corner of the room, a fixed point above the professor’s head; anywhere at all where he may fall back into himself and reminisce the angles of Farrier’s body. He dreamed on the tram and amid the city streets, where the world fell away, dark and unimportant, so it was as if all that mattered was Farrier and Farrier alone. It was a fondness fueled by the first perceptions of love that Collins, at first, could not grasp. It was like drowning beneath a weight so heady it threatened to ruin him.

 

 

 

 

 **nine**.

It was a day in late April. The sky had faded to a deep purple, its glow like weak ghost light through the balcony windows. Collins lay clothed in bed, watching Farrier light a cigarette.

 

He asked, rather quietly, “What’s your name?”

 

Farrier looked at him. “My name?”

 

“Yes. RAF pilots never go by their first names. I want to know yours.”

 

In his time alone amid Farrier’s belongings, as he awaited Farrier to finish work, to finish a bath, any time left alone whatsoever, Collins had scoured the apartment for any sign of a name. He had come up empty handed every time; and it had only done worse to his curiosity. He watched Farrier now with an eagerness, as if he could not stand another moment of not knowing absolutely everything about him.

 

Farrier came into bed, smiling around the cigarette. “Why are you so curious?”

 

“You don’t want to tell me?”

 

“Thomas,” he said. “But, like you, no one calls me by it.”

 

He was handsome in the remains of his uniform. He had discarded the tie and overcoat, but still wore the white dress shirt, stiff with starch. When he came close, Collins smelled only a mixture of tobacco, of perfume and sweat and the soap Farrier washed with. It was the smell of Farrier, both masculine and chemical, that made Collins’s head light.

 

“Thomas,” Collins repeated, like a secret. He smiled as he said it. “It suits you.”

 

“Does it?”

 

“Quite.”

 

Farrier watched him the way that he quite often did. It was neither a searching nor unusual look, but rather a glance that held all his small wonders. He did not smile with his mouth, but with his eyes; like stones of garnet caught beneath a rising light, he shined.

 

“It takes so little to make my kid happy,” he said.

 

Farrier rested his shoulders to the wall, with all the pillows piled beneath his lower back. He motioned for Collins to come into his side and once there, he held him loosely as he finished his cigarette. It was that way they spent many of their days together. They laid about in bed and made love with the French doors open unto the courtyard, so all the sounds of spring emanated upward, like breath from the earth. It was the noise of the carpenters in the flat across the way, the crackling of the stove as the room warmed tenderly, that so kept them there, unperturbed to ever be anywhere else. They needed only each other and the blowing of the wind and the sounds of the sky as the ravens flew overhead. But it was on that particular day, as Collins lay his cheek against Farrier’s chest that he was told, “I get very tired of this place sometimes.”

 

“Tired of the city?”

 

“Not the city, darling, but the flat. It’s all we ever see.”

 

It was a very true thing to say, but Collins did not mind the way Farrier seemed to mind. He had come to love the flat with all its grey light. He loved the courtyard, where laundry cables were strewn between apartments, where the trees bent toward the earth. He loved that the sky blackened so quickly, like the moon could not stand the stars to go unseen for long. It was a remarkable place once one became accustomed to it, and over the passing weeks, Collins had very well become accustomed. He said none of this, but thought it all, and thought, too, that he understood, in a mild way, what Farrier meant.

 

“I want to take you someplace,” Farrier said. “What do you think of that?”

 

Collins repressed a smile. He sat up as to look Farrier in the eye and was at once humbled. He could not always stand the way Farrier looked at him. It was with severity marking the space between his eyes, his mouth set in a broad, handsome line, as if all the world hung from the very words Collins would utter. He was not used to being looked at in such a way. He felt terribly, terribly important.

 

“Where do you want to take me?”

 

“I guess I’ll have to figure that out, won’t I?”

 

“Well, wherever you want to go, I’ll go.”

 

“Is that so?” Farrier was smiling. It was a wonderfully warm smile that Collins fell into quickly. When, then, Farrier said, “Come here,” and placed a hand upon Collins’s cheek, Collins went to him. He allowed himself to be pulled into Farrier’s lap. He let himself be kissed and held and touched beneath his clothes.

 

In all their time together, it was easily Farrier’s hands that Collins had come to memorize the most. He knew of each scar that lined the fingers, the weight of his palms and how Farrier liked them to be held. It was, after all, Farrier’s hands that made it impossible to leave, even when the time had started to slip away and night had replaced the evening light; when Collins knew he ought to get home, it was as if Farrier held him in place by the gentle press of his fingers and nothing else.

 

Collins took Farrier in his arms and lay very still against him, so it was only the beating of their hearts he felt over the blowing wind and the cold of the room. He closed his eyes and thought of only his breathing that slowly quickened, then deepened, then began to come in irregular bursts as Farrier took him apart and placed him, delicately, back together. It was a wonder he could do it all with only his hands and nothing else.

 

It was after, as they lay together in the dark, that Farrier pushed the hair from Collins’s eyes and asked, quietly, “When did you realize that I had become important to you?”

 

The apartment was filled with dull light. There was the light from the moon and from the stove; it left all the corners cloaked in shadow, but lighted the bed in such a way that Collins could see, perfectly, the severity of Farrier’s gaze. He was very serious. It was said by his tone as well as his eyes.

 

“You were always a bit important.” It was uncomfortable to be put in such a position, with no sound but the sound of his own voice. But as Collins looked over into Farrier’s eyes and felt his reassuring touch beneath the hem of his shirt, Collins weakened. “You were so kind, right from the start, yeah? I couldn’t make up someone like you.”

 

Farrier came closer. His arm wrapped clean around Collins’s waist.

 

He spoke to the ceiling, his cheek against Farrier’s cheek. There was the tickle of Farrier’s mouth gently brushing the side of his neck. “I didn’t really understand when I first saw you how beautiful you were. I thought you looked very important in your suit, in the rain, but I never thought the word  _beautiful_. Not until I saw you again.”

 

Farrier hummed quietly. “When you returned for your clothes.”

 

“That’s right.” Collins paused. He swallowed his pride and said, “I thought of you all the time. I thought, maybe it was because you were so nice to me—and maybe that was true, but not now.”

 

“No?”

 

“No. I think of you now because”—Farrier lifted his head and looked at him—“you’re important.”

 

Without word or thought and barely a move, Farrier pressed a kiss to Collins’s mouth. “The first time you left, I thought of nothing. I washed your clothes and I set them on the line to dry, then went to sleep.”

 

“And then?”

 

“Then you came back.” He touched Collins’s face. He touched his throat and then his chest, his hand moving smoothly down the front of Collins’s shirt. Once settled at his waist, Farrier said: “I’m not an idiot. I didn’t want to think of you, because it isn’t entirely right.”

 

“I’m not a child.”

 

“I know that.” He smiled playfully. “You think I don’t know that now? I knew it before. No. What I mean is, I didn’t want to cause you trouble.”

 

Collins watched him steadily. He could not imagine Farrier causing anyone any trouble at all.

 

As if able to see the disbelief in Collins’s eyes, Farrier explained: “When you get older, life becomes...” He was quiet. “You’re—what, in college?”

 

Collins lighted up at Farrier’s correct guess. He nodded.

 

“You have college to worry about. And yourself.”

 

“And you.”

 

“Yes,” Farrier smiled. “And me. That’s all. But later, life will start to cause problems. I didn’t want to be one of those problems for you.”

 

Collins pushed himself up and against Farrier’s chest. He held him that way. “You don’t feel like this anymore, do you?”

 

Farrier did not respond. It was his silence that said it all.

 

Collins kissed and was kissed and pushed Farrier onto his back so he may kiss him further, deeper, with his whole body. It troubled him to think Farrier thought so maddeningly low of himself—that he was a  _problem_! Collins could never imagine him as such.

 

“You’re wonderful,” he said. “I think you’re wonderful.”

 

With a laugh, Farrier replied, “Thanks, kid,” with only warmth in his voice.

 

“You believe me?”

 

“Yeah, I believe you. But you don’t have to say such things.”

 

Collins lay down against him, quiet all the time. There was much more he wanted to say—so much more. But he did not know how to.

 

“All right,” he whispered. All right.

 

 

 

 

 **ten**.

It was well after dark when Farrier parked outside Collins’s building. The small car idled quietly as a sleeping dog. It was as if all the world lay in wait all around them; not a sound was heard, not even from the few flats across the road where candlelight still burned.

 

It was a clear night. A very cool night. They knew better than to part with any great show, but the sky was so dark with the pinpoints of light like drops of paint against a black tapestry that Collins could hardly fight the urge to lean over and press a kiss to Farrier’s temple. So romantic was the moment! But though he wished to with all his heart, this was something Collins did not do.

 

It was with a lasting touch to Farrier’s arm that Collins bid his noncommittal good-bys, then bound, quickly, up the few steps to the front door. Inside, where the light was dimly cast by a singular candle lighted on the mantle, Collins leaned against the door with a great, deep sigh. It was the sigh of a boy fallen deep into dream; so it was that he dreamed on his feet, in the dark hall of his home, where not a creature stirred.

 

It was that way his Father found him: skulking, silently. He said, rather bemused, “Where have you been?”

 

Collins started. It was one of few times his Father had ever taken interest, however slight, in the goings-on of his life. To look at him then, watching him strangely in the dark, was as off-putting as being stared at by a stranger.

 

“Nowhere,” said Collins. “Out with a friend,” he corrected at once. “To study.”

 

“Who was that gentleman in the car?”

 

So he had seen, most likely through the den windows, Farrier by the road. Why was this such a troubling thing to hear?

 

Instinctively Collins said, “He’s the cousin of my friend,” for he knew his Father would never know the name of any friend of his; and he would not ask. “He was nice enough to take me home, it being late and all.”

 

“Very late, innit?”

 

“A bit.”

 

“You made sure to thank him for bringing you?”

 

Collins nodded. Though it was only Farrier, and his Father had no knowledge of their close relations, Collins was not a boy to forget his head so completely as to forget his manners as well. It nearly pained him to know his Father thought this possible, as if he thought of his son as still a boyish lad.

 

It was with a look of mild disinterest that his Father left him, rather suddenly, with no real parting word beyond a soft spoken,  _get on to bed_ , as he went. And this alone was so out of the ordinary that Collins stood a moment longer, watching his Father disappear into the darker regions of that large, lonesome flat, as if returning to shadow, where it was he surely felt most at ease.

 

Such a peculiar exchange was this that Collins could not help but follow his Father into the den, where he quietly watched him a moment. He called out, softly, “Is everything all right?”

 

“Yes,” was the reply. He spoke as if knowing Collins would come. “You’ve been out late these days” From his place behind the desk, his Father looked sternly over wire-tipped frames. “You’ve been good to keep out of trouble?”

 

Collins said, “Yes, sir.”

 

They watched one another as strangers may do in passing commune. It was not an unfriendly passing, but one lacking the warmth of familiarity. It was a shame, Collins thought, that such a great chasm settled between them, for there was a very slight part of him that wished to tell his Father everything. From the type of person Farrier was, to how lovely the days seemed to have become. The sun shined differently since he had met Farrier—but he knew, even on the best of terms, it would be difficult to share such a thing with someone on the outside.

 

“Something’s bothering you?” asked his Father.

 

“School,” Collins lied. “The end of term is coming up.”

 

“Have you decided what you’ll do with your studies?”

 

Collins said he had not, but that he had an idea now what he may find an interest in. That, too, was simply a lie put into words. He had no idea at all what he may be good at in the coming years of University, and it troubled him, but nothing beyond what was ordinary for a boy his age. It was easier, then, to come upon a narrative his Father would believe. He explained that he was often late, because he had taken to studying with a friend after school; they spent many hours in the library, or on campus, comparing notes on progress. It was a story his Father accepted completely, with a nod of his head, a few words of encouragement. It was of no wonder then that his Father took very little interest in his day-to-day. But it later occurred to Collins how easy it had been for Farrier to remain a delicate, well-kept secret. He often turned over in his head how wonderfully easy the world had made it. It had been as if they roamed the streets of Edinburgh all their own, without a care beyond each other.

 

 

 

 

 **eleven**.

But, after time, it felt more like theirs was a deceptive bond. What they had was so otherworldly to those around them that it did not warrant any real care. They went about the city with shoulders pressed very close together; they sat across one another in pubs and diners, the toes of their shoes touching beneath the table cloth, and once even with their hands dangerously close. Never was anyone the wiser.

 

It all relied on the idea that people thought them to be a family of sorts. Distant cousins, perhaps. Anything, it seemed, but what they really were. And no matter how rousing it was to hide in plain sight, it was always twinged with a bit of pain, for Collins wanted, above many other things, to flaunt Farrier the way a person may flaunt a creation they have taken particularly pride in. For it was love he felt for the man beside him—he was certain—and what could be worse than to keep such a thing a secret.

 

 

 

 

 **twelve**.

On a day in June, two weeks following the end of term, they loaded the boot of Farrier’s car and, together, drove out into the country. Collins can no sooner recall what lie he told his Father than remember the exact location they holidayed in, but he would never forget the rolling hills of outer Edinburgh, where the sky touched the horizon like an ocean above them. The sky was white like the waves of The Channel and had been difficult to believe real.

 

They spoke little in the car as was usual for them—a quiet unraveling of the country around them, broadened by the silence they shared—and registered under the guise of uncle and nephew. Farrier had found it all quite funny, the way Collins scrunched his nose in distaste as they came to the rented room, sulking much like a spurned child.

 

“Did you really have to say that?” he said. “Couldn’t we be friends or colleagues? Something...but not, not  _family_.”

 

Farrier did not speak until the door had been closed and the bags stowed in the closet. And when he spoke, he did so with a smile in his eyes, ruddy cheeks burning with a flush. “It’d be strange, wouldn’t it? To vacation with an older man that isn’t family.”

 

“ _Is_ it strange?”

 

“No.” Farrier took Collins’s face between his hands. “Not at all, darling, but they would think so.” He kissed the place between his eyes and let his mouth linger. “It isn’t  _so_  bad, is it? To pretend I’m your uncle. It could be worse— _far_  worse. What if I had said I was your Father?”

 

It was very rare that Farrier made such jokes, and rarer still that he laughed at them, but Collins shied away, disgusted.

 

“I can’t look at you now.”

 

Farrier laughed loudly. It was the first time Collins had heard such a sound. It thawed him at once and he allowed Farrier to pull him to bed. All the time, Farrier laughed soft, whispering giggles that were swallowed up between them as they kissed and kissed deeply, the room very cold around them and the sun burning like a fallen star just outside the window.

 

They were to spend a week together in that room, with only the deep blue of the sky to light the windows at night and a crackling fire Farrier struggled to light each time. And with every day that came it was like the unfurling of a flower. Thick summer light fell over the fields like stardust; and in the morning, awake in the quiet of the room, Collins watched it all. Sometimes, as he lay awake, he would feel the brush of Farrier’s beard against his bare shoulder; or the grip of Farrier’s fingers against his smooth stomach. It had been as if, even in sleep, Farrier could not be without contact, and how Collins had loved it all—!

 

They made love in the afternoons and spent the nights by the fire; Farrier would smoke out the window with the smell of the warm, summer night rolling in waves on the wind, blowing his flat, dampened hair across his forehead. And it seemed in their time away, Farrier lost years like weight from his face. He was no longer so tired. The lines beneath his eyes and beside his mouth were not so deep. He smiled brightly, as if the very light of the night had crawled into him and burned him from the inside.

 

And as each day was more than the last—they biked through the fields and stowed away beneath fruit trees, hidden in the dense gardens of Edinburgh where they kissed and did not care who may stumble upon them—it was not until the week came to an end, on the last day together, that Collins laid his head against Farrier’s stomach beside the fire, and they spoke of little things, and important things, and things that did not seem to matter just yet, but which mattered more than the world knew.

 

Farrier had lighted a cigarette and smoked, thoughtfully, with an arm pillowed under his head. They were on the floor, where the fire was warmest, with all the windows open. Collins had just told him of his Mother.

 

Tired from talking, Collins asked, softly, “Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?”

 

It was not meant to be a very serious question, but rather something to fill the silence—something, perhaps, that would open what loosely closed doors it seemed Farrier harbored. But it was impossible to deny the weight which followed as Farrier paused in a drawn-out silence, as if he could not quite think up a proper response.

 

At last, he said, “What is there to talk about?”

 

“Anything, really.”

 

“Why are you asking me this?”

 

Collins sat up and laughed. He said, “Are you taking offense?” He leaned over Farrier’s chest and pressed his face into the column of Farrier’s neck, where he felt the beating of his pulse. “I was only curious a moment. What do you do when I’m not around?”

 

“You know what I do. I spend my time at the base.”

 

“And why not the base in London? You never told me about that.”

 

“I like it better here.”

 

It was obvious then, by the curt way he spoke, that Collins would not get much out of him. He did not mind, though. It was not something that he thought garnered serious interest. But he was curious of the way Farrier hid away behind brick walls that Collins had never had to push through before.

 

“You’re like a shadow,” he whispered. “You aren’t really there.”

 

“Why do you say that?”

 

“Because, well, —I know you, don’t I? But what do I know?”

 

Farrier studied him quite some time. Collins could not make sense of the look in his eyes. Was it hurt that he saw, or something deeper?

 

“You know all that matters,” said Farrier. “Trust me on that.”

 

“I know that you’re a pilot.”

 

Farrier nodded.

 

“I know that you’re from London”—he looked to the fire and recited slowly, thinking all the time—“I know how strong you like your tea and that you read too much Hemingway. And that you think movie star romances are real.”

 

Farrier laughed joyously. “You have to dream up some things, darling, don’t you? Makes life a little more fun.” He sat up with Collins sat beside him and he rest his chin over Collins’s shoulder. His voice was like rolling thunder down into the depths of Collins’s head.

 

“I came to Scotland for a reason, you understand? I didn’t like London anymore and I definitely didn’t like what kind of person I was there. So I came here, yeah? I started over. So what you know about me is who I am now.” He turned his head and kissed Collins’s ear. “You came in quite at the start. Right after I settled in. You popped up like you belonged there—and you do, don’t you think?”

 

Collins said yes, he thought he did.

 

“You know me,” Farrier said. “You do. There just isn’t a whole lot to know.”

 

It pained Collins to hear such a thing—and it pained him ever more that Farrier could read him so well. For it was only a moment later that he pulled Collins into his arms. He said nothing with words, but spoke with his hands which cradled Collins’s head and his back; he spoke with his mouth that pressed a kiss here and there behind Collins’s ear, against his throat, somewhere low on his chest that lay open as the collar of his shirt was unbuttoned. And all the time, it was as if Farrier was telling him that it was all right, nothing really mattered anyway.

 

But it was so, after that night, Collins never could stop the ringing of Farrier’s voice in his ears; how unmistakably saddened he had sounded. And it only ever came up once more that summer. It was a particularly humid day in August and the two of them, out for lunch with ice filled tea cups to fight off the sweltering heat, sat across one another in a small cafe. It was there, as Collins watched those around them, that he turned to Farrier and asked, “Have you ever thought of having a family?”

 

Farrier was stricken by the question. He let it show only by the slight widening of his eyes.

 

“I used to,” he said. “But it seems a bit late for that, doesn’t it?”

 

Collins did not have an answer for that, and he never did ask again. But it was one of those things that never really left his head.

 

 

 

 

 **thirteen**.

It was not to say they stopped speaking of such things, but that Collins no longer felt an unrelenting need to know. He was not a boy that planned for happiness and he did not think far into the future. If, by chance, what he had with Farrier lasted as long as his heart so wished, he did not want to taint it by placing it under the artificial guise of daydreams. Hadn't he learned as much before, the first time he had allowed his heart to speak for him?

 

They were happy together—unbelievably so at times. And when the rains of autumn began, and winter sat heavily on the wind, they warmed themselves beside the stove and Collins did not think that he would ever be quite so happy again, not in the way he was when he would watch Farrier hang the laundry out to dry, or when the bath water ran so hot the walls perspired and made him sweat, or when they lay together under the covers with only themselves and the night and the sounds of the city outside the open doors. Collins knew he could not conjure up a future quite so lovely—and he feared, in a far off, unbeknownst way, that one did not exist for them.

 

 

 

 

 **fourteen**.

It was a small, but satisfying detail that theirs was an immediately private relationship, and that in all the time together, there had never been the question of someone else. It was a facet that later proved extraordinarily lonesome, but in those beginning days of brewing romance, it was a kind of advantage, for it made love impossibly easy.

 

It was Farrier Collins thought of from the moment he woke to when, at last, he slept, always with his head in the clouds where Farrier could be found. And it was Collins Farrier spoke ceaselessly about. In the hushed halls of the RAF base, where Collins occasionally came to watch him fly, his name was passed from pilot to pilot with the awe of discrete curiosity. He was Farrier’s boy to some and an enigma to them all, for if asked directly, Farrier would shut up tight as a fist, unwilling to ever open again.

 

They were, in every way, a secret, untouched by all that existed around them. It was how they had started and how, Collins imagined, they would stay. But as it was, at the end of 1938, when snow collected in mounds like sugar against the cool sky, he learned of harsh realities—and of what it meant to be of such great secrecy.

 

 

 

 

 **fifteen**.

So it was, on one particular day in the month of November, Collins came from school with his books tucked under one arm; snow flurries colored his yellow hair. He walked as he had always walked. He passed the same shops. He mused over the lighted windows and all the vehicles parked along the side of the road like toy cars placed in a row; and as he came up the stairs to Farrier’s flat, he reached for the door as he always did. But this time, he had found it locked.

 

It was because he was young, and trifle things hurt him far deeper than others, that Collins stood, perturbed, as if he had been faced with some unchangeable happening. But, at once, the feeling retreated and, himself again, he knocked. He thought it must be because Farrier was not home. Perhaps he had taken a nap and had forgotten, in his tired state, to unlock the door as he did every day. What ever it may have been it was simply unimportant now. But it was then that the door opened and it was not Farrier that answered, but an unfamiliar woman.

 

She was tall and very fierce with a shock of black hair tied out of her face. And when her eyes rested on Collins, who stood in a great stupor, a crease formed across her forehead as if in silent inquiry.

 

“Yes?” she said, in a voice layered in authority.

 

Collins did not know how to respond.

 

“Farrier,” he said, stupidly. Then, looking over her shoulder as if in search of him, Collins said, “Is he here?”

 

“Thomas?” the woman said. She looked over her shoulder into the apartment where, suddenly, Farrier had all but appeared. He wore every piece of his uniform. It was almost an odd sight to see him so formal at such a late hour of the evening.

 

Farrier kindly moved the woman aside and told her, “Excuse us, dear,” as he crowded Collins on the doorstep, forcing him back a great many steps.

 

They whispered in the stairwell, where the air was terrifically cold; their breath came in deep, bluing clouds.

 

Farrier said, “It isn’t a good time.”

 

Collins tried, desperately, to hide the hurt that touched him. He blamed it on never having been denied Farrier’s attention before. He blamed it on age. He blamed it on many things, but knew, somewhere, very deep in the tightening of his chest, that there was something wrong. He did not like the way Farrier would not look at him.

 

“All right,” said Collins, and when Farrier, at once, began to apologize, he reached out a hand to silence him.

 

He decided, as he walked carefully amid ice encrusted roads, that he would not go home. He would wait. And, so, that was what he had done for most of that November evening—and how easy it was to recall such an evening, as if it had been a timeless part of his life. He was alone for every moment of it. In the warm confinement of an Italian cafe only meters away from the old, leaning building of Farrier’s flat. He had drank coffee that he did not like, the News on the radio; incessant chatter like mid-day television. Oh, how strange it had all been—! Like a terrible dream come to life. And all the time, Collins could not understand why he felt the way he did, until he saw the woman again, some time later, through the window of the coffee shop.

 

She came alone and hailed a cab.

 

It was not so much her which unsettled him, but rather the way Farrier looked at him when, again, Collins was found on the doorstep, knocking on a locked door.

 

“You waited for me?” Farrier said. “Why did you wait.”

 

“Would you rather I hadn’t?”

 

“No, kid—I didn’t mean it that way. I just wasn’t...”

 

He urged Collins in as if afraid of who may see him out on that cold, bleak doorstep. It was a terrible feeling. It was a feeling Farrier had never made Collins feel before; there was a shame in the way Farrier suddenly acted. It was heady, like a heavy wave lapping at the side of a very weak boat; Collins felt the entirety of himself falter.

 

There was tea brewed on the table, but it had long since gone cold. The French doors were not open as they usually were, but latched up tightly; the whole apartment seemed locked unto itself. It was as if Farrier had decided to stow himself away, forevermore. He had not opened the curtains. The windows were tightly closed up.

 

It was like being in a different world altogether.

 

“I should get you home,” Farrier said.

 

“It isn’t very late,” Collins said in return. He could not hide his worry. It shamed him and weakened him and at once, unable to swallow the odd feeling festering inside him, Collins said, “Have I done something wrong?”

 

Farrier collapsed in a seat at the table. He placed one palm against his forehead and, after a lengthy pause, he lifted his head. Collins could not stand the way his eyes swam, like pools of sorrow, so deep he would drown in them.

 

“Come here,” Farrier said. “Sit with me.”

 

 

 

 

 **sixteen**.

What Farrier then said to Collins would remain with him for the rest of his life. It would not haunt him as Collins was so sure of when first he was told, but rather it would follow like the ghost remains of something unforgotten. It would bury itself deep beneath Collins’s skin, where no one would ever touch it; and it would surface from time to time, when the nights were very long and the sky black as memory.

 

Farrier touched the back of Collins’s palm with the tips of his gently shaking fingers. He spoke carefully, clearly, as if knowing well the weight of each word: “The woman that was here...her name is Margaret.” He sighed. “She’s my wife.”

 

Collins rose at once, sick in the head, and Farrier rose with him.

 

He said, “Listen, Fin. —Before you say anything, before you even  _think_  about what I’ve just told you, you need to understand something.”

 

Collins listened, for he could not breathe. His mouth trembled terribly, so he could not speak. But his mind raged; and his heart pulsed like something dying.

 

He said, “We’re in the middle of a divorce.”

 

He said, “It takes time to get through it.”

 

He said, “I would have told you by now, darling, had I thought she’d ever show up again.”

 

“I have to go,” Collins whispered. Then, “Really, Farrier, I have to...”

 

When he left, he was struck by how cold the night had become. Or was it the breaking of his heart that made him ever colder? He thought, certainly, that he was going home and he would not return. He would never again see Thomas Farrier; he would not dream of him, he would not so much as remember a time when he did, and as time passed, he would become the distant memory as all people tend to become over time. But it did not happen that way.

 

Collins walked the street leading out of the underpass and came to the tram that would take him home. But he did not take the ride. He returned, quietly, to Farrier’s apartment. When he answered, he looked neither surprised nor relieved, but every bit as torn apart as Collins felt.

 

He said, “Kid, kid, come here, please.” And it was as Collins allowed himself to be touched, knowing he would break if Farrier did not hold him, that he understood he would never leave him.

 

He was hurt enough to cry, but could not bring himself to do it. He said all this and more as Farrier took him into his arms and petted his head. He kissed Collins’s cheek, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, whimpering softly all the time that he would never purposely keep such a thing from him had he thought it would ever turn up. She was meant to stay in London. They were supposed to finish the paperwork through court. He had truly thought her out of his life.

 

These facts did not make it right, but they made forgiveness possible.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come chat if you'd like ! i'm very new to this tiny fandom ~ meeting some of you would be great ;3;
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